Category Archives: Anecdotes

Have you ever lived in a house, studied some place that you didn’t particularly like, but once you left, you felt a certain level of pride for being part of that particular place?

I have recently left my second Alma Matter for greener pastures. I had great moments during my time there, met some of the best people in the world, but the last year or so haven’t been filled with good memories at all. Once I cleared my desk and gave up my keys, all of a sudden I was overcome with a sense of pride for being part of that place, I even went to the University Shop and bought a pin with the University Crest to add to my bag.

Was it a feeling of pride for being part of the institution or was it a feeling of self-pride for having somewhat tamed the beast and padding myself on the back for not giving up? Well, I am not sure what I am feeling at the moment, to be very honest! I wished I had some idea and give credit where credit is due… and probably for the first time in my life, I will put modesty, guide that pride and pat myself on the back for another achievement! For better or worse, I handed in my PhD Thesis! While still being grateful for everything my Alma Matter did for me!

Sorry for my absence! I have been away for the past few days and I am now going away again. Crossing four countries in two days. It sounds way better than it actually is! I left Ireland towards the UK. After that, I took the boat and needed to cross the beautiful country of Wales until I arrived in England. Now, I am just a couple of hours away from flying to Brazil.

It’s quite tiring, but I am not complaining! Just posted this quickly to let you guys know I am still alive and will post some new stuff very soon!

After a long trip to Brazil, back in 2004/2005, I returned home to Ireland and, as I still had 6 months with nothing to do, I decided to get a job.

There is nothing more rewarding than getting a job, right? So people say, anyway, so I became a bartender at a local hotel.

On the second day of the job, as I was pulling a pint, I felt the strongest, sharpest pain I had ever felt in my entire life. I spilled beer on the costumers and all, it was a massive mess, I tell you!

That pain didn’t go away! It was sooooo bad and no position I tried to be in felt comfortable, just more and more pain. Well, what else could I have done? So I was brought to hospital. I had no idea what was going on with me, I thought it was appendicitis, but I was wrong… it was kidney stones.

My mother was there with me and I could see she was in pain from seeing me in pain. They tried three different types of painkillers and none made the pain go away, so they had to bring out the big guns: Morphine. Still I am not sure what I felt, but the pain went away almost instantaneously, but also my blood pressure, which dropped down to 73 by 31 (This is really, really low blood pressure). I am not sure what had happened, but I couldn’t speak and could barely understand what the people around me were saying.

Out of nowhere, I see a priest lean over me, puts his hands over my forehead and says something, which for me sounded like Charlie Brown’s teachers. As I couldn’t speak, I started struggling, well, I wanted to know what was happening! “Why the hell is a priest talking to me?”, I thought… maybe I should have just given up, really… at that stage, I thought I was dying and the priest came to give me my last rites. As quick as he appeared, he disappeared and, slowly, I became more alert and asked why the hell was he giving me my last rites? I heard a wave of laughter from the nurses and from my mom… I felt so embarrassed! It turned out that my mom was the priest’s hairdresser and he just came in to say hello.

If my profile gets deleted, you guys can be witness to their censorship! And my BeWelcome profile is available on the sidebar of my blog. I really hope BW won’t disappoint me the same way CS did.

I was part of couchsurfing since I started university in 2005. My initial profile was deleted in 2006, together with other thousands (server crash or something). For a while, I stayed away, just sharing my floor and couch with friends and friends of friends, kind of having my own couchsurfing through my connections. I came back in 2009, didn’t remain active and made a new profile in 2011. Since then, I have organized events, sang praises about the community, hosted several people in my house, showed the places I have lived (and not lived) to strangers I couldn’t host. It’s been great.

Since the very beginning, I have donated quite a bit of money to the place and gained the “pioneer” badge… donated money to a community that, at the time, was non-profit and had no intention of making money out of it. Well, who needs hotels when you can have the kindness of some amazing people?

When I rejoined in 2011, as usual, I got that nice welcome email, showing how great the community was etc. And it indeed was a great community. Soon after, I got another email, saying that couchsurfing was no longer non-profit, but it didn’t mean it was for-profit. Quite a heart-warming email from the co-founder.

Here is a copy of the main point of the email that still shocks me:

“….

— Just because we’re not a non-profit doesn’t mean we’re actually “for” profit. CouchSurfing is not for sale, and money is not our goal. We recognize that the community is what makes this movement real and supporting it is what our organization is here for. Everyone on our staff is a CouchSurfing member, and we want to keep it that way.

…”

Well, fair enough… since thousands of us donated money, I am ok with no one capitalizing from our donations.

Again, not soon after this email was sent, this time with no email sent to members, CS became a for-profit company.

In my view, this is what happened:

While still a non-profit, they accepted donations, both through money and goodwill of people, and managed to build quite a big operation;

The non-profit, which was built with donation money and marketing done with its thousands of ambassadors/users who dedicated their time to organize events etc, became full-on for-profit and got massive injections of capital from venture capitalists;

They ruined the website and absolutely destroyed community.

Ever since these changes happened, CS has been accused of censorship (don’t you mention BeWelcome in their website, otherwise you will have your account deleted!), amongst several other things.

I am still part of the community… but bringing my business elsewhere. I don’t think it is fair for a company to capitalize on the kindness of others. Take your favourite charity: Would you be ok if, after years of service, it got privatized and made a fortune?